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Mathematics and Music: Relating Science to Arts?

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Mathematics and Music: Relating Science to Arts? 36 Mathematics and Music: Relating Science to Arts? MICHAEL BEER 1. Introduction For many people, mathematics is an enigma. Characterised by the impression of numbers and calculations taught at school, it is often accompanied by feelings of rejection and disinterest, and it is believed to be strictly rational, abstract, cold, and soulless. Music, on the other hand, has something to do with emotion, with feelings, and with life. It is present in all daily routines. Everyone has sung a song, pressed a key on a piano, blown into a flute, and therefore, in some sense, made music. It is something people can interact with, it is a way of expression and a part of everyone’s existence. The motivation for investigating the connections between these two apparent opposites therefore is not very obvious, and it is unclear in what aspects of both topics such a relationship could be sought. Moreover, even if some mathematical aspects in music such as rhythm and pitch are accepted, it is far more difficult to imagine any musicality in mathematics. The countability and the strong order of mathematics do not seem to coincide with an artistic pattern. However, there are different aspects which indicate this sort of relationship. Firstly, research has proved that children playing the piano often show improved reasoning skills like those applied in solving jigsaw puzzles, playing chess, or conducting mathematical deductions (see reference 1, p. 17). Secondly, it was noticed in a particular investigation that the percentage of undergraduate students having taken a music course was about eleven percent above average amongst mathematics majors (see reference 2, p. 18). This affinity of mathematicians for music is not only a recent phenomenon, but has been mentioned previously by Bloch in 1925 (see reference 3, p. 183). This article examines the relationship between mathematics and music from three different points of view. The first describes some ideas about harmony, tones, and tunings generated by the ancient Greeks, the second shows examples of mathematical patterns in musical compositions, and the last illuminates artistic attributes of mathematics. It is not the intention of this article to provide a complete overview of the complex connections between these two subjects. Neither is it to give detailed explanations and reasons for the cited aspects. However, this assignment will show that mathematics and music do not form such strong opposites as they are commonly considered to do, but that there are connections and similarities between them, which may explain why some musicians like mathematics and why mathematicians frequently love music. 2. Tone and tuning: the Pythagorean perception of music In the time of the ancient Greeks, mathematics and music were strongly connected. Music was considered as a strictly mathematical discipline, handling number relationships, ratios, and proportions. In the quadrivium (the curriculum of the Pythagorean School) music was placed 37 Mathematics (the study of the unchangeable) quantity magnitude (the discreet) (the continued) alone in relation at rest in motion (the absolute) (the relative) (the stable) (the moving) Arithmetic Music Geometry Astronomy Figure 1 The quadrivium (see reference 4, p. 64). on the same level as arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy (see figure 1). This interpretation totally neglected the creative aspects of musical performance. Music was the science of sound and harmony. The basic notions in this context were those of consonance and dissonance. People had noticed very early on that two different notes do not always sound pleasant (consonant) when played together. Moreover, the ancient Greeks discovered that to a note with a given frequency only those other notes whose frequencies were integer multiples of the first could be properly combined. If, for example, a note of the frequency 220 Hz was played, the notes of frequencies 440 Hz, 660 Hz, 880 Hz, 1100 Hz, and so on, sounded best when played together with the first. Furthermore, examinations of different sounds showed that these integer multiples of the base frequency always appear in a weak intensity when the basic note is played. If a string whose length defines a frequency of 220 Hz is vibrating, the generated sound also contains components of the frequencies 440 Hz, 660 Hz, 880 Hz, 1100 Hz, and so on. Whereas the listeners perceive mainly the basic note, the intensities of these so-called overtones define the character of an instrument. It is primarily due to this phenomenon that a violin and a trumpet do not sound similar even if they play the same note. (The respective intensities of the overtones are expressed by the Fourier coefficients when analysing a single note played. This concept, however, will not be explained within the scope of this article.) The most important frequency ratio is 1:2, which is called an octave in the Western system of music notation. Two different notes in such a relation are often considered as principally the same (and are therefore given the same name), only varying in their pitch but not in their character. The Greeks saw in the octave a ‘cyclic identity’. The following ratios build the musical fifth (2:3), fourth (3:4), major third (4:5), and minor third (5:6), which all have their importance in the creation of chords. The difference between a fifth and a fourth was defined as a ‘whole’ tone, which results in a ratio of 8:9. These ratios correspond not only to the sounding frequencies but also to the relative string lengths, which made it easy to find consonant notes starting from a base frequency. Shortening a string to two thirds of its length creates the musical interval of a fifth for example. All these studies of ‘harmonic’ ratios and proportions were the essence of music during Pythagorean times. This perception, however, lost its importance at the end of the Middle Ages, when more complex music was developed. Despite the ‘perfect’ ratios, there occurred new dissonances when particular chords, different keys, or a greater scale of notes were used. The explanation for this phenomenon was the incommensurability of thirds, fifths, and octaves when defined by integer ratios. By adding several intervals of these types to a base note, we never reach an octave of the base note again. In other words, an octave (1:2) cannot be subdivided 38 into a finite number of equal intervals of this Pythagorean type (x : x +1 | x being an integer). Adding whole tones defined by the ratio 9:8 to a base note with the frequency f , for example, never creates a new note with the frequency 2f ,3f ,4f , or similar. However, adding six whole tones to a note almost creates its first octave defined by the following double frequency: 9 6 ≈ 8 f 2.0273f>2f. The amount six whole tones overpass an octave is called the ‘Pythagorean comma’: 9 6 8 = 1.013 643 2 .... 2 Considering these characteristics of the Pythagorean intervals, the need for another tuning system developed. Several attempts were made, but only one has survived until nowadays: the system of dividing an octave into twelve equal (‘even-tempered’) semi-tones introduced by Johann Sebastian Bach. Founding on the ratio 1:2 for octaves, all the other Pythagorean intervals were slightly tempered (adjusted) in order to fit into this new pattern. A whole tone√ no 12 longer was defined by the ratio√ 9/8√= 1.125,√ but by two semi-tones (each expressed by 2) obtaining the numerical value 12 2 12 2 = 6 2 ≈ 1.1225. The even-tempered fifth then was defined by seven semi-tones and therefore slightly smaller than the Pythagorean fifth, the fourth by five semi-tones and therefore slightly bigger than the Pythagorean fourth. The controversy within this tempering process is that the human ear still prefers the ‘pure’ Pythagorean intervals, whereas a tempered scale is necessary for complex chordal music. Musicians nowadays have to cope with these slight dissonances in order to tune an instrument so that it fits into this even-tempered pattern. With the evolution of this more complicated mathematical model for tuning an instrument, and with the increased importance of musicality and performance, music and mathematics in this aspect have lost the close relationship known in√ ancient Greek times. As an even-tempered interval could no longer be expressed as a ratio ( 12 2 is an irrational number), the musicians learnt to tune an instrument by training their ear rather than by applying mathematical principles. Music from this point of view released itself from mathematical domination; see references 4 (pp. 36–67), 5, 6 (pp. 3–5), and 7 (Chapter 1, pp. 13–27). 3. Mathematical music: Fibonacci numbers and the golden section in musical compositions The questions of tone and tuning are one aspect in which mathematical thoughts enter the world of music. However, music – at least in a modern perception – does not only consist of notes and harmony. More important are the changes of notes in relation to time, that is the aspect of rhythm and melody. Here again mathematical concepts are omnipresent. Not only is the symbolic musical notation in all its aspects very mathematical, but also particular arithmetic and geometric reflections can be found in musical compositions, as will be seen in the following paragraphs. (This article is not going to deal with highly sophisticated mathematical music theories as established by Xenakis (see reference 8) or Mazzola (see references 9 and 10) for example, based on an algebraic composition model or on group and topos theories respectively. These two concepts would exceed this overview of the relations between mathematics and music.) 39 A very interesting aspect of mathematical concepts in musical compositions is the appearance of Fibonacci numbers and the theory of the golden section.
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